Cultural institutions, regardless of size, present unique challenges to those tending and mending their facilities. From housing precious collections to hosting thousands of guests, maintaining the invaluable and often fragile nature of these important environments requires a team of well-trained individuals who are just as comfortable problem solving as part of an integrated team as they are troubleshooting on their own.
The Office of Facility Management and Reliability, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., represents one such team of individuals. Together, OFMR’s 850 full-time staff members work to keep 12 million square feet of museum exhibition and research space—as well as the Smithsonian’s vast acreage—pristine and operating smoothly. This benefits the 136 million artifacts carefully kept in its museums’ collections, as well as the 30 million visitors who enjoy visiting the Smithsonian campus each year.
OFMR Director Nancy Bechtol, CFM, credits the presence of her in-house maintenance and operations staff for their ability to “keep the show on the road” amidst an often challenging environment comprised of both ongoing preventive maintenance and active corrective maintenance related to the presence of aged facilities constructed over a century ago and the inherent wear and tear of such high traffic levels.
“By engaging in this multi-faceted maintenance system, the OFMR team makes unmistakable contributions to the Smithsonian’s overarching mission to support the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” Bechtol said.
A wide scope of responsibility
The Office of Maintenance and Reliability’s support of the Smithsonian’s mission is further reinforced by the myriad roles it plays that extend beyond the preventive and corrective maintenance services it provides the organization. For example, over the years OFMR staff has found themselves transporting endangered animals at the National Zoo, staffing elaborate special events and putting the final touches on significant SI exhibitions.
Bechtol recalled one particular instance in which a Smithsonian donor took a final walk-through prior to the opening of an exhibition he was sponsoring.
“The donor felt that his name appeared too small on the exhibition sign and asked that it be enlarged.”
With fewer than 24 hours before the exhibit opened to the public, the existing elegant signage had to be resourcefully edited so that a larger iteration of the donor’s name appeared—without drawing attention to the fact that the new name was a last-minute change.
“These are the sorts of things that keep us [OFMR] networking with other Smithsonian offices, like the Office of Exhibits Central,” said Bechtol.
By working all night, OFMR staff—who have their own large format, high-quality plotter—helped OEC finalize the exhibition signage to both the donor’s and curators’ satisfaction. Such challenging, time-sensitive situations allow OFMR staff to constantly meet new people and discover new capabilities.
Discovering new capabilities is something that the team of OFMR Zone Manager Dan Davies, CFM, team has grown accustomed to. Davies manages one of the Smithsonian’s eight operational divisions, or zones—the Upper Northwest Zone, which includes both the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. The National Zoo alone is comprised of more than 100 buildings and structures and is occupied by over 2,000 animals, many of them members of endangered species. In addition to maintaining their facilities, the UNWZ zoo team takes on a variety of roles related to animal welfare. For example, any time an animal needs to be moved to another location, all crate handling is done by OFMR staff.
“Handling the animal crates requires an understanding those involved must not get excited or nervous,” Davies remarked about the nature of working with the National Zoo’s sensitive living collections.
The OFMR team’s multifaceted role in zoo activities recently saw them partnering with the National Zoo’s curatorial staff to solve a unique dilemma. Together, they engineered, designed and fabricated a crate with an integrated life-support sling system that could accommodate a 5,000 pound hippopotamus on its cross-country voyage from the National Zoo to its new home at the Minnesota Zoo.
Located on the Chesapeake Bay, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Zone also must accommodate animal occupants. SERC conducts extensive research on complex environmental issues, especially those impacted by human activities at the land-sea interface. While SERC is the location of significant environmental research, it is also home to hundreds of deer on its 2,800 acres. Despite its size, the SERC land mass simply does not have the carrying capacity to accommodate its ever-growing deer population. This being the case, Zone Manager Jeff Ridgeway, CFM, and his team must carefully coordinate an annual deer hunt. This deer hunt is organized through a lottery-based permit system—allowing approximately 200 hunters per year to help control the deer population on the SERC land.
It’s certainly apparent that no two Smithsonian Institution zones are the same.
Bechtol noted that, “the variety is satisfying here,” and OFMR Deputy Director Richard Day’s experiences reinforce Bechtol’s assertion. Nodding to this variety, Day described an experience when, as building manager of the National Museum of American History early in his career, he and his team took on an integral role in rigging and moving the John Bull steam engine, a massive piece of the NMAH collection that dates back to the 1830s.
“This experience really validated my staff and me—we trained as riggers in order to learn how to do it in a very scientific way,” Day said.
The fruits of their rigging efforts enabled the Smithsonian to commemorate the John Bull engine’s 150th anniversary with a spectacular feat. Day and his staff moved the John Bull—which weighs in at an impressive 10 tons—from the museum floor to a stretch of railroad near the Potomac River in Virginia to be fired up once again.
“The fire billowing out of the stack was incredible,” Day reminisced.
Special events and associated needs
In addition to aiding in special Smithsonian projects such as the reincarnation of the John Bull engine, OFMR plays a key role in facilitating SI’s frequent and varied special events.
“Special events take a big toll on our staff and present a challenge, because we have to set up, provide service, clean up and break down these events so that the museum is ready to reopen on time the next day,” said Angel Rodriguez, zone manager for the West Mall Zone, whose primary responsibility is caring for the recently renovated National Museum of American History.
Along with the preparations required for the museums’ special events traffic, national holidays such as the Fourth of July involve extra planning to accommodate the large quantity of additional visitors. For example, Rodriguez estimates that 120,000 people passed through the National Museum of American History on the Fourth of July alone in 2010. Another event that challenges facility staff at the Smithsonian is the presidential inauguration. Inaugurations are national celebrations and for many visitors, the inauguration itself is frequently incorporated into an extended stay in Washington, D.C.
During the recent renovation of the National Museum of American History, several decisions were made about finishes that create challenges for facility staff. The renovation incorporated steel and glass surfaces throughout the museum and the high visitor numbers contribute to what Rodriguez calls his biggest challenge—keeping his sparkling glass and steel-clad museum clean despite the heavy use the building gets.
While the oft-fingerprinted glass and steel at the National Museum of American History presents major challenges to Rodriguez and his team, John Bixler, zone manager of the East Mall Zone, has his own unique set of issues to keep up with. The East Mall Zone is home to the National Air and Space Museum, which sees some of the Smithsonian’s heaviest traffic. Combine this with the fact that NASM also houses a national fast food chain location and you can see why it is a challenge to keep the outdoor area neat and tidy. Many of this chain’s children’s meal boxes do not find their way into trash receptacles—presenting a constant issue for building service workers aiming to keep the outdoor area pristine.
The South Mall Zone, managed by Maurice Evans, encompasses a wide variety of unique challenges as well, due in part to the diverse age range and types of buildings found in the zone. For example, a portion of the South Mall Zone called the Quadrangle is 96 percent underground and houses the National Museum of African Art, the Ripley International Center and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.
Some of the key issues that Evans and his team must navigate include the difficulty of regulating indoor air quality three stories underground, the inherent difficulty of expanding underground facilities and the presence of their beautiful green roof, the Enid A. Haupt Garden.
Referring to the Haupt garden, Evans asks, “How can you replace a roof in this case?”
The answer: the popular garden must be completely removed during the re-roofing process.
Evans also faced a challenge when the design of a new exhibition slated for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden—which houses modern and contemporary art—was found to include a water feature with which the visitors could interact. That situation not only challenged the facility team from the standpoint of introducing excess humidity into a gallery displaying art but also from a safety and liability perspective.
The sensitivity to maintaining the integrity of the museum’s collections—both living and otherwise—is integral to the OFMR’s success within the Smithsonian.
“We get a lot of credit for being heroes and it’s really pretty easy,” Day said. “The hard stuff is doing the daily work that prevents catastrophes and keeps everything going.”
The importance of maintaining cultural institutions
Cultural institutions play many roles in the story of a society—regardless of the country or region. Though some may house art, display collections or support research and education, the facilities that house cultural institutions face many challenges in their ongoing efforts to educate, inform and entertain their constituencies and visitors. Managing these buildings and grounds in ways that satisfy the collections, visitors, staff and facilities is what facility management teams in cultural institutions face every day.
Each facility has its own story and challenges. Some truly unusual facility challenges are faced on such a routine basis that facility teams in cultural institutions take these situations in stride. They do the work and continue preparing for the next day or event.
Think about the facility management at your museum, performing arts center, library, archives, historical site, art institute, theater, symphony hall, garden, landmark site, aquarium or zoo. How does your facility team keep everything going smoothly there? FMJ
